To effectively operate a business involving sales and/or promotion of products and/or services, the business must provide a sales approach that is consistent across a multitude of sales personnel. However, sales personnel or agents are not able to consistently deliver an approach that is consistent with company guidelines for a variety of reasons. This is a particular problem where the sales involve telephone contact between the sales person and a potential customer.
One proposed solution is to carefully script the conversation between sales personnel and potential customers. Through such scripting of the interaction, it is possible to obtain a higher level of consistency in approach, however, a great deal of inconsistency remains due to various factors including, but not limited to, rejection and/or discouragement felt by the sales personnel resulting from rejections during prior calls, personal sickness and/or fatigue experienced by the sales personnel, personality flaws of the sales personnel, boredom, lack of training, improper training and/or inability of the sales personnel to properly communicate or follow instructions, and poor speaking and/or listening skills.
Even if these problems could be cured, other problems related to contacting potential customers by telephone exist. For example, human operators are not well suited to the type of repetition required by contacting customers by telephone in an environment that requires careful and strict adherence to pre-set procedures and scripts. This repetition leads to decreased sales as personnel capable of working in the repetitive market make sales, while others fail to make sales. This is borne out by experience indicating that twenty percent of the sales force are responsible for eighty percent of actual sales. While the remaining eighty-percent of the sales force fails in comparison to the aforementioned twenty percent. This failure often results in high turnover of sales personnel with the majority of personnel not remaining even through a probationary training period.
This employee turnover results in significant employer costs in terms of wasted training resources that cannot be recouped through increased sales. It is not uncommon for an employer to experience an employee turnover of two hundred to three hundred percent and even more. This requires significant expenditures to recruit and train replacement personnel. Furthermore, employees are typically paid to attend training sessions regarding the proper delivery of promotional materials. All of this training is wasted if the employee later tires of and terminates their employment. Furthermore, employee job dissatisfaction leads to a significant increase in absenteeism and corresponding costs to employers including, but not limited to, paid sick days.
Some solutions have been advanced to overcome problems endemic with sales personnel. For example, some companies have tried to identify personnel that are more suited for the type of work by screening the personnel before they are ever hired or any training expense is invested in the employees. Additionally, benefits above just standard compensation are provided for employees that remain on the job for a predetermined period of time or for offering consistent service. Such incentives can include performance incentives, spiffs or bonuses given for sales or even for a properly executed sales approach.
Some solutions involve additional training included regularly and methodically during the course of employment. This training can include: role playing, approach memorization, and/or mirrors placed at a station used by telephone sales personnel to allow employees making sales using a telephone to see facial expressions. Other approaches include the retention of motivational consultants to help instill confidence or enthusiasm in the sales force. Finally, employers typically monitor the approach given by various sales personnel to facilitate training tailored to specific personnel.
Some solutions involve providing the entire sales approach to the employees in a binder. Alternatively, the sales approach can be provided to the employee as a text document reviewable by computer. While these solutions offer some aid to the employee, they still require the employee to repetitive read and execute the sales approach. This process is prone to errors and often not sufficiently flexible to allow a proper approach.
While each of these solutions alleviates some of the problems associated with assuring consistent, cost effective marketing approach, none of the solutions provides an adequate remedy.